Abraham Lincoln eBook

“The State of Virginia, which ceded to the United
States her claims to this Territory, consented, by
her delegates in the Old Congress, to this Ordinance.
Not only Virginia, but North Carolina, South Carolina,
and Georgia, by the unanimous votes of their delegates
in the Old Congress, approved of the Ordinance of
1787, by which Slavery is forever abolished in the
Territory northwest of the river Ohio. Without
the votes of these States, the Ordinance could not
have been passed; and there is no recollection of
an opposition from any of these States to the act of
confirmation passed under the actual Constitution.”]

[Footnote 10:—­“The famous Ordinance
of Congress of the 13th July, 1787, which has ever
since constituted, in most respects, the model of all
our territorial governments, and is equally remarkable
for the brevity and exactness of its text, and for
its masterly display of the fundamental principles
of civil and religious liberty.”—­Justice
Story, 1 Commentaries: Sec. 1312.

“It is well known that the Ordinance of 1787
was drawn by the Hon. Nathan Dane, of Massachusetts,
and adopted with scarcely a verbal alteration by Congress.
It is a noble and imperishable monument to his fame.”—­Id.
note.

The ordinance was reported by a committee, of which
Wm. S. Johnson and Charles Pinckney were members.
It recites that, “for extending the fundamental
principles of civil and religious liberty, which form
the basis whereon these republics, their laws and
constitutions, are erected; to fix and establish those
principles as the basis of all laws, constitutions,
and governments which forever hereafter shall be formed
in the said Territory; to provide also for the establishment
of States and permanent government, and for their
admission to a share in the federal councils, on an
equal footing with the original States, at as early
periods as may be consistent with the general interest—­

“It is hereby ordained and declared, by the
authority aforesaid, that the following articles shall
be considered as articles of compact between the original
States and the people and States in the said Territory,
and forever remain unalterable, unless by common consent,
to wit:”

“Art. 6. There shall be neither
slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said Territory
otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof
the party shall have been duly convicted; provided
always that any person escaping into the same, from
whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one
of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully
reclaimed, and conveyed to the person claiming his
or her labor or service.”

On passing the ordinance, the ayes and nays were required
by Judge Yates, of New York, when it appeared that
his was the only vote in the negative.